


Merry Christmas, Pernicious Innovator

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Mobsterswitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a fortnight after your disagreement with Peccant Scofflaw, and he must have taken your threat to leave the Twilight Scoundrels seriously, because it looks like his protection has finally run out. You're out of food and your heat and phone aren't working.<br/>Oh. And it's Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry Christmas, Pernicious Innovator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blacktail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktail/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, potter-y~

It is cold, and you are hungry.

You're used to your rooms being chilled, oh yes, but this morning you woke up with frost clinging to the half-empty glasses of water lurking on every surface in your room. You didn't get out of bed today, except to make yourself a cup of tea with your last spoonful of leaves and dash back to your room and the relative safety of your pile of quilts. The tea was a long time ago, and you don't have anything else worth ingesting in your cupboards. And it is very cold.

Your heat has stopped working, you think, reaching a spidery finger out to touch the frigid radiator. And you don't have any food. You know why, now that you think about it. Usually it's Scofflaw who takes care of that sort of thing, paying a little visit to wherever you go to get your heat turned on without paying for it. You've never really thought about it because he's always had it under control. Of course he was also the one that ensured food showed up, usually in the arms of that callous floozy he keeps pushing at you. She makes you nervous.

So of course, a fortnight after your disagreement with Peccant Scofflaw, his protection has finally run out. You had thought he would apologize by now, that he would see some reason and come back to your attic rooms. He'd tell you that of course, you were right, he was being a little hasty in his actions with the young gumshoe, that he'd put the team first again- that he'd put you first again. You might have made a few threats you'd believed to be empty; as if you would leave Scofflaw's Scoundrels if you could! It's obvious, though, from the frigid air and your empty stomach, that Scofflaw himself believed you.

Oh no. Oh _no_.

You scrub a circle of frost off your window and peer through to calculate the distance to the nearest store. It is snowing heavily outside, and you cling to your blankets. There's almost no-one on the streets, probably because of the heavy snow. You don't blame them for staying in. If your fingers weren't stiff and frozen, you'd wire a little coil together to broadcast some heat... but you can't stand the idea of putting in a few hours working with frosted metal, even if it would probably result in warmth eventually. Probably.

You can't find a pencil, but you have a little book of puzzles within reach. You spend an hour huddled under your blankets, solving them in your head in the dim light, and then an unidentified length of time half-asleep, dreaming. The things you imagine are vivid and practically leak heat; a cup of warm cocoa passed to you by someone who pulls you into their arms. The kiss on your forehead emanates warmth, a glowing sigil long after the gesture has stopped. You don't imagine a face, though if you did, it would be perfect and more real than life. With Scofflaw's abandonment, you're not sure if you could make him that warm center to your fantasies.

Then, of course, there is another face you might recreate, still and cool and grey-eyed, but you did not exactly part on good terms with him, and the thought of seeing him so clearly makes you so nervous you start out of your pleasant dreams.

You wake up shivering. For all you were warm in your imagination, your body never experienced it, and you were merely blocking out its suffering. The snow has let up a little, and there are even less people on the streets now for some reason. It's certainly past lunchtime- that would explain why your insides are curling in on themselves in search of something to digest. Once Dead-eyed Detective told you in cool, dry amusement that he believed you survived on tea alone, but now you don't even have that. You bundle blankets around yourself, scramble a pair of socks out from under the bed, and search the kitchen, just in case you missed something the first time around. But no, you finished off the last of the real food Tuesday, and yesterday you made do with the biscuits and scraps you had left, and now you have nothing.

When you return to your bedroom, the bed is cold. You have nothing to live for. For a few minutes, you curl up anyhow, but you just do not generate enough heat on your own to get by. Without heat, without food, you are beginning to think you actually will not make it through the night.

You could telephone Scofflaw. You could apologize. You are not wrong, of course, but wasn't it Scofflaw who told you a little deception never hurt anyone? You can bring up your disagreements later, after you're back under his wing. But when you lift the frozen receiver shakily to your ear, there is no dial tone. Had he had your phone cut, too? You can't help it now. You whimper, and in your misery, a few tears thaw your cheeks and fingers. But the heat vanishes quickly, and you're left with the knowledge that unless you bring back some measure of heat and food to your little rooms, you will probably die in them.

It takes layers and layers before you feel like you can venture into that snowy world. And your things are rather scattered; it is near dark by the time you track down your earmuffs to go under your derby. You'd rather a tuque, but you haven't seen it since last year, and you wouldn't know where to begin looking. You find two left-hand mittens and a right-hand glove, and that's good enough. You do know where you keep your firearm, of course, and you let that rest between several layers of shirts and your overcoat. Scofflaw has long since drilled into your head the mantra, "Man's Best Friend. Never Leave Home Without It." Three pairs of socks later, and your pyjamas under your everyday trousers, and you think you might be able to bear the touch of the wind.

It still nearly blows you over.

It's nearly forty-five minutes, on a walk that takes fifteen in the summer. Snow clogs your shoes (you couldn't find your boots) and the wind drives against you as if to force you back home. You shiver, stuff your hands in your pockets, and whimper with pain. Perhaps halfway there, you realize you must have died cold in your attic and never woken up, and this blowing cold hell is your punishment for all of the things you did in life. You can hear his voice, Detective's voice, listing your felonies. Thirty-two counts of possession of illegal or unlicensed weaponry, nine counts of armed burglary, three counts of armed robbery, six counts of conspiracy to rob. Seven counts of murder.

Surely that's enough to warrant a frigid lonely hell.

Still, the street doesn't stretch on forever, and eventually you do reach the store, and extend a gloved hand to pull the door open. You can stay as long as you like in the warmth there, and return home with tea and bread and perhaps ham? Your brain is so happy for a few moments on the idea of food and warmth that it takes you a minute to realize you can't open the door. You tug effortlessly and look up.

9 – 5 CHRISTMAS EVE  
CLOSED CHRISTMAS  
12-4 BOXING DAY

Oh no, no certainly... but your mind does the math, and it checks out: it's Christmas Day, and you won't find a place to get food tonight. You nearly crumple into the snowbank, and then realize you forgot your wallet anyway.

Homeward. Now that you know, you can look through the gusts to see the occasional window lit up yellow, with too many people packed in together. They have plates or glasses of wine in their hands and you cry with envy and misery. Your face is frozen, two tear patterns icing your cheeks. You will go home alone, to your empty frosty rooms. Your bed will be cold and you'll never get warm.

You consider the viability of walking in and taking one of these houses, these sunny places full of food. That would be an awful lot of people to deal with, though, and you don't believe you have enough bullets to quite make do. And besides, your imagination provides a moral guide where you lack one.

He talks to you in that time, or at least, you pretend he does, well enough to be almost real. He is a cool, distant angel there, snowy gusts for wings. His eyes are colourless, cautious, but he holds his head high. If you are in hell, after all, wouldn't he be...

You think he would still come to you. If you were in hell.

But you don't know. After all, he didn't come today. You'd given up on Scofflaw but you hadn't really given up on Dead-eyed Detective, for all your last meeting was, to put it nicely, all business. You still thought, when you were cold and unhappy and suffering, maybe he would still come.

You're sure he has other places to be. Family. His friends. Normal people have places to go on Christmas. You walk home alone, for once all too aware that his presence beside you is imaginary.

You stumble up your staircase, body numb with pain and cold, not even whimpering at the gusts that throw you around. Mutely, you put your hand on your cold doorknob, fumble your key into the lock, and turn. You'll collapse into bed and just wait to die there.

The tumblers don't turn. You click it a few times to the right just to make sure, then put your keys back in your pocket. You are quite sure you locked up when you left. There is nothing normal to steal, but perhaps the police are waiting, or some rival inventor is taking your plans. You reach inside your coat; your fingers are almost too stiff and bloodless to work the revolver but you make them wrap around it. Then you enter, trying your best to be silent. Snow cakes your coat and pants, and is stuffed into your shoes. Your ankles are burning with cold, a strange sensation you wish you could analyze further.

The door swings open with barely a squeak. The place is lit up, every candle and lamp lit with matches and oil you didn't have. The tiny antique fireplace is clean and actually burning wood- you'd thought it was blocked off, and hadn't used the thing since you moved here. The wave of heat almost knocks you flat out.

Your table full of half-finished devices has been moved towards the wall, and the two patched armchairs and your coffee table have been rescued from the clutter that usually threatens to overtake it all. There is a pot of sugar and a jug of milk or cream on the table, and a pair of mismatched saucers. On the chair you've designated as "yours" (meaning, you have never tied Detective to it), there is a flat box. It has a bow. You eye it and point your frozen revolver around your nigh-unrecognizable apartment.

There are sounds coming from the kitchen, beyond the usual and perpetual drip from the tap. You peer in, gun clasped in your long fingers, and watch, puzzled, as Dead-eyed Detective moves efficiently around your kitchen. Water is boiling on the stove, and there is something green in it. One of your teapots is steeping, and Detective is using a spare dishcloth as an impromptu over mitt to remove something from the stove. The smells, like the warmth, threaten to overwhelm you.

"Welcome home," he says without turning around, continuing to work, stirring and observing.

And that does overwhelm you at last, so Detective is stuck peeling you off the floor and out of your many layers of wet things. He sets you up before the fire with a quilt and a mug of tea, only a hair overbrewed. The potatoes burn a little while he's tending to you and you think he doesn't quite believe your repeated insistence that you don't mind.

The gift is a hot water bottle. You have nothing for him, but you promise awkwardly not to kidnap him again if he doesn't want you to, and he seems to like that enough to smile. You put the gift to use later on, warming your bed up for the first time in what feels like forever. In an odd twist on your makeshift Christmas present to him, Detective elects to stay, and you don't sleep that night so much as exist with his arm around you.

"Merry Christmas, Innovator," he tells you at some point that night, and you think disjointedly that it might very well be, and the first of its kind.

"Merry Christmas," you reply to him.

And you might not be protected, but you are, for once, perfectly happy.


End file.
